So I go back to Oakland, CA, where I once lived, and dropped by my old apartment building, to see who I could see. My boy Erick is at work, but he left me a key under the mat. Gloria, the nice and nosy building manager is home, I ring her bell, she says what she always says when she open the door and its me, her voice high and weathered, a warm cackle, “I always know its you because I look through the door window and I can never see who it is, I can never see you!”

That’s because I still ring her doorbell like how I used to when I lived next door to her, ring, then get my lean on the stucco wall between our doors, waiting patiently. I do it the same way now because I love knowing that there’s this apartment building on a little slope in Oakland, where a white woman in her 60’s is going to greet me how she always greets me.

I ring her bell and move out her field of vision now just because its such a gift to have pushed down roots on Montecito Ave, just up from the gum splattered 7-11, which is just across from the new Whole Foods, my old apartment building where I organized a traveling Christmas party and told all the tenants a heartwarming holiday tale from off the dome, that building is less than one block away from the most perfect cherry tree, its blooming right now in hushed violets and lip parting pinks, a vision of spring, and all you have to do it cross the street to get to Children’s Fairyland, where parents clasp hands with children, little ones leaping and chirping like birds, this is Lake Merritt, where trees cry sap down wood tongues back to me, I came back to see, how home one of my homes can still be.

I walk into Gloria’s spot, she hands me a sherry and we start talking about Obama’s state of race in the nation speech. She was taken. I was listening.

Naxal here, with “All the News That’s Fit to Flip.” Here’s to making it through the first wave of U.S. holidays. That is, if you made it through. If not, R.I.P and everything.

Heads up: Over the Thanksgiving weekend, I posted a series of political poems at www.myspace.com/naxal. The series, Chosen Family Holidays (Installments 1, 2, 3), gives voice to whats weird, severing, and grudgingly triumphant about *being real* over the goddamn, gotta love it, holiday season.

This winter, the planet tilts further from the sun and the personal edges closer to the political. Millions strive towards togetherness, fulfillment, flat screens, all in the face of unemployment, loved ones at war, and daunting lines at the local Best Buy.

It’s all a bit ridiculous, and we’ve still got Christmas and the Western New Year to go. Great. In the name of the holiday spirit, I’d like to dedicate this post to loosening up, without the wine.

Enjoy and stay tuned for more injections of holiday decimating cryptonite, from me, Naxal, with, “All the News That’s Fit to Flip.”

November 30, 2007

1. 1. An Exiting Bush Begins To Recall How To Appear As Though He’s Doing Something “Presidential.”